#chrislanglois

When you consider the cost of advertising, sales and marketing, and time, it costs five to eight times more than retaining your existing guests. It’s well known that hotels and restaurants don’t merely need satisfied guests, they need LOYAL guests.  Loyal customers will not only eat or stay at our business every time they’re in town, but they will also recommend it to all of their friends and family.  But, many of us don’t know how to create these types of guests. Here are four ways to increase your loyal patrons:

1.       Recognize your guest – The most pleasing phrase in any language is one’s name. A colleague brought me out to dinner a few months ago to this hole in the wall Italian restaurant called Bocci, in Charleston, SC. When we walked in, my colleague was greeted by name from every single staff member. I was amazed, and slightly jealous. After our main course, I had to ask why he came here so often. He said, “Simple. Because they remember me, they call me by my name”.

Remembering your guests name is not an easy task, especially when you see hundreds of people each day. There are some tricks to remembering names. You can look at a reservation, credit card, or maybe even a rewards number before the guest checks in. Some of your employees will not have access to reservations or credit cards, such as your housekeepers, and it’s impractical to expect them to remember and recognize all the guests in your hotel. However, a warm smile and a genuine hello will go a long way to recognizing your guest.

2.       Fulfill your guest’s expectations – just like when you’re flying with an airline, you expect a safe and secure environment. In this case, you want to get those feelings from going to location A to location B safely. When you take off in a plane, a flight attendant goes through the mundane safety procedures, and they always encourage you to look in the seat pocket ahead of you to review these documents. Do you ever really look at them? If you’re like most, no way! Guests are not going to read your S.O.P.s and manuals, so they are not going to understand your policies and procedures. Guests don’t want to spend their vacation time reading rules and regulations. They just want their needs to be met in a painless manner.

I experienced a violation of this principle when I was traveling through Florida. I walked through a side door on my way to the front desk. A housekeeper was finishing up a suite as I walked past. I thought to myself, “awesome! I can upgrade and get a little more space to spread out and finish my presentation.” A little extra chipper, I walked to the front desk and began the check in process. The front desk agent (FDA) was very polite and courteous…until I asked if I could upgrade. She said I couldn’t because there wasn’t any available. Generally, I would say no big deal, but I asked if someone was occupying or going to occupy the suite that I had just walked past. She explained that it was unoccupied but she couldn’t upgrade to that room. For about five minutes we went back and forth until I realized the reason she couldn’t upgrade me  wasn’t because I couldn’t be in that room, but because she didn’t know how to open the room and switch me over in the system. There wasn’t a manual she could refer to and her supervisor didn’t get her the empowerment to tackle any issues. She probably would have called him, but it was nearly eleven at night and she was most likely afraid of the repercussions of calling him that late.

3.       It’s all about the customer’s perception – this has been driven into my mind by a previous employer and rightfully so. To a guest, perception is reality. As a manager, owner, or employee it doesn’t matter how you see things or what your intentions are. The only thing that matters is what guests or potential guests see and that might  not always the same as what you see. If your guests see you as more expensive, you are. If your guest thinks your midscale and you think you’re upscale, guess what? You’re midscale. If you think you have courteous and knowledgeable staff members and your guests think you have morons, you have morons.  When you see yourself as, let’s say, upscale and your marketing to upscale clients. Guess what’s going to happen when they stay at your hotel? They will be extremely disappointed and the next thing you know you’re being slandered all over the internet, your bottom-line plummets, and if you don’t take care of it, you’ll be out of business. Take off your blinders, step over your ego, and look through the eyes of your guests.

4.       Create unforgettable memories your guests can brag about – now, more than ever, people are adding experiences to their bucket list versus the tangibles, such as huge houses and fancy cars. Furthermore, your guests want to recreate their memorable experiences. People travel the world, skydive, eat at famous chef’s restaurants, and pick certain hotels for the experience they provide. If your guests feel good about their experience at your hotel, you can bet they will be back. If the occasion was memorable enough, they will tell their close friends and family members too. As we all know, word of mouth advertising is the best that money CANNOT buy!

Chris Langlois

Chrislanglois.com

extremeEDvantage.com

Legacy – no one lives forever, but one’s legacy might. So how will you be remembered? Will you be remembered for your unmatched stories, the funny laugh that always brightens up a room (we all have that friend with the silly laugh), for your shyness, your temper, or maybe for your character? I recently watched a video of Will Smith (Will Smith: Leaving a Legacy) and realized he is a man who will forever be remembered as his breakout character, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Just like the audience in the talk show, you can sing the theme song from start to finish. (I’m singing it as I write this!) Will Smith has a lot of accomplishments to be remembered for from his Blockbuster movies to his hip-hop albums, but he will always be remembered as the Fresh Prince. So how will you be remembered and how can you ensure you too will have a strong positive legacy? Here are 3 ways you can leave one:

Live your legacy – as cliché as it sounds, actions speak louder than words. I recently watched “The Fighter” with Mark Wahlberg. There is a scene where is brother gets upset and begins to punch the lockers. His child sees him and begins to take the same action by punching the lockers. People are always watching you whether you like it or not. The young and impressionable ones will follow in your footsteps. The most indelible legacy is the way that we live. 

 Live like you mean it – None of us know how long we will live our lives on planet earth. However, we can leave the legacy we want by living in honor, conviction, and passion. People will remember the way you live more than the details of your achievement. Think of Michael Jackson. He has countless achievements under his belt but very few remember him for his accomplishments. They remember him for the way he lived his life.

Build the foundations of purpose for others to build on – you cannot build a pyramid by yourself or in a single generation. However, it can eventually be built if the foundation was built on principles and purposes that are timeless, and certainly bigger than we are. Live a story that lasts an eternity.

Leave a legacy that will go on-and-on for generations to come and that you can be proud of… something more than your surname.

Chris Langlois

www.chrislanglois.com

www.extremeEDvantage.com

After speaking to a group in South Carolina, I was inspired to write this article to help those struggling to find and recruit top young talent. Never before has the war on finding talent been so fierce. Recruiting and retaining young professionals is not easy. It is difficult to get the competitive advantage in a climate where quality candidates are being sought after by so many companies with a strong financial background, credibility, and with great philanthropy.

Let’s be honest, most millennials are not going to jump into just any job. You need to get them to WANT to jump on your team! Here are my top 5 ways to recruit the top talented millennials:

1.       BUILD A DEMAND – think of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” by Mark Twain.  Tom was caught playing hooky from school and had to whitewash the fence as punishment the next day. He cleverly persuades his friends to help paint the fence. His friends tease him at first but then he says he is having a great time painting the fence and that even if his friends wanted to he wouldn’t let them help. He soon “gives in” and allows others to essentially do the work for him.

He built a demand and by doing so he actually got the others to do the boring hard labor. When millennials ask about positions within your company, tell them there’s a limited amount of spaces and that they need to apply ASAP. Everyone is somewhat familiar with the hospitality industry. When you’re at a restaurant, where is the hostess stand at? It’s near the door where people have to gather  making the restaurant appear popular. Where is the door located? Near the busiest street so people drive by and see the “demand” for their place. Furthermore, do you notice how the hostess sometimes won’t seat you even when there are tables available? She is encouraged to let people gather to increase the demand and hype before seating groups.

2.       MARKET TO MILLENNIALS – You don’t expect a cow to come to you to get milked, so don’t market to millennials and expect them to find it. You have to go to them and recruit where they will be.

a.       Use technology – create a short video using pictures and clips (Animoto is very user friendly).If you don’t feel up to creating a video then have a millennial on your team create a social media site that is linked into your company’s website and social media pages. You can post on virtual job fairs!

b.      Speed dating concept – have your current millennials talk about their experiences to potential candidates at a job or career fair. A candidate may back out or not go in at all because of what your worker may say but that’s good! You probably just weeded someone out that would have quit later anyways.

c.       Talk to the parents – recognize the parent’s involvement and use them as an asset. Parents want the best for their children, so talk to them about why a position within your company will jumpstart their career. Parents are so involved in their kids’ lives; once I had a parent come and talk to be after I sent their kid home from work for poor behavior! Here are some stats to help drive this point: The Collegiate Employment Research Institute reports that, “Nearly a quarter of all employers have ‘sometimes’ or ‘very often’ seen parents involved in the recruitment and employment of recent college graduates. Forty percent of employers report that parents have called them requesting information about the company; 4 percent report parents actually attending the interview.”

3.       BUILD MEANING – This is something that I hope I have driven into the minds of many learners. Do you know the premise behind Tom’s Shoes? (Tom’s Shoes will make another pair of shoes and send them to a third world country for every pair sold) A normal everyday shoe has sold 10s to 100s of millions of dollars’ worth because they had a cause, a “meaning” behind their business. Success will come when you can differentiate yourselves from your competition.. You need to get them interested early on. Like the cause behind Toms Shoes created a positive “buzz”, you can too. Here is how:

a.       Explaining “WHY” they should be a part of your company.

b.      Setting expectations for position: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

c.       Remembering that your “WHY” is not the same as your employees and your employee’s “WHY” is not a one size fits all.

A learner in a recent talk I gave said, “Chris, you millennials aren’t much different than previous generations, we have all done those things and we, too, expected respect and recognition. We just didn’t have the technology capabilities to get things as quick and be as social about it.” I want you all to be as successful as possible. I want to see you all be profitable and hire more millennials!

I encourage you to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns you may have. Remember, I am a millennial so I expect quick feedback! ;)

PS check out this YouTube video of where millennials come from and why they are the way they are.

Chris Langlois

[email protected]

chrislanglois.com